2003: The first London Design Festival

In comparison to today's Festivals, the first London Design Festival was a small affair, taking place in just 32 venues across the capital, but it was a bold start to what was to become the world's most consistently creative international design event.

Two things were clear even then. Firstly, it was the right time and the right place to launch such an event. Secondly, the UK had something very unique to offer in terms of design creativity. "The UK is an ideas goldmine," said Digby Jones, then Director-General of the CBI, "home to many of the world's most creative companies... The London Design Festival is a catalyst for companies to explore new ideas and 'think outside the box'."

The official guide to the Festival, published by Time Out, also identified another key element that would become crucial to later years. "The Festival," Time Out wrote in an introduction, "has been planned to appeal to everyone, from leading professionals in town to deliver keynote speeches at The World Creative Forum, to emerging talent, eager to share their latest ideas with the design world, as well as afficionados keen to lust over the latest objects from the furniture, homewear and fashion worlds." This was to be a Festival for everyone, not just the design elite.

The 2003 Festival included:

• The World Creative Forum, a two-and-a-half day conference featuring keynote speakers Tim Berners-Lee, Professor Richard Florida, Antony Gormley, Baroness Susan Greenfield and Daniel Libeskind.
• Open House Contemporary
• 100% Design
• Designersblock
• The V&A exhibition Zoomorphic
• The D&AD's The Race Forum
• A Zandra Rhodes exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum